This story is about a woman, Rose, whose husband, a policeman, is shot on duty in Belfast. She and her teenage daughter immigrate to South Africa. Rose goes to live in a seaside resort near Cape Town, meets a young man, and, being a ballroom dancing teacher, helps him win a Latin dance competition. He falls in love with her. Although attracted by him, Rose doesn't love him, but he pursues her till she gives in and they marry. Meanwhile, Rose's brother, a doctor whose wife has just died, follows her with his twelve-year-old son, Teddy. He wants to carry on an incestuous relationship with his unwilling sister but is killed in a car accident, leaving Rose well provided for. She makes a home for Teddy over school holidays and gives him the affection and interest of a mother. He tries, when he is on holiday from school, to protect Rose from her unfaithful and abusive husband. Later, as a young man, Teddy qualifies as a pilot and wants to rescue Rose from her empty marriage. She separates from her husband, and Teddy takes her with her two very young children to Canada. Her husband goes to pieces and commits suicide. Rose adores Teddy, but as he is a pilot, he is often away, and she grows lonely. Her son had been emotionally scarred by a compromising experience with a girl. He is encouraged by a disturbed pen friend to overcome his fear of the opposite sex by making advances to his mother. As a seventeen year old, he begs her for a closer relationship and overpowers her. Rose and her son find they grow close and deeply love each other. He wants to find a meaning to his life, and he eventually decides to become a priest. Later he is not certain if he really has a calling and, as he is unable to let go of his mother, decides finally to give up and remain with her. She is unhappy in Canada and wants to return to South Africa.